Meet the Connecticut women who blazed trails

Take a look at some of the women who blazed trails throughout Connecticut's history.

Take a look at some of the women who blazed trails throughout Connecticut's history.

Photo: The News-Times File Photo

Photo: The News-Times File Photo

Image
1of/29

Caption

Close

Image 1 of 29

Take a look at some of the women who blazed trails throughout Connecticut's history.

Take a look at some of the women who blazed trails throughout Connecticut's history.

Photo: The News-Times File Photo

Meet the Connecticut women who blazed trails

1 / 29

Back to Gallery

Connecticut women have achieved many firsts in fields that were once reserved for men, oftentimes breaking convention and taboo. As recently as 2016, a military graduate from Woodbridge, Conn., Kristen Griest, became the first female infantry officer in the U.S. Army. She was inducted in the Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame last year, joining the likes of abolitionist Prudence Crandall, explorer Mary Jobe Akeley, and Margaret Bourke-White, the first female American war journalist.

Many of the inductees broke barriers in their fields even when formal training or education weren't available to them, according to Lena Pacheco, director of education at the Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame. The first female dentist in America, Emeline Roberts Jones of Danielson, Conn., tried to enter a profession that in the 1850s was still not accessible to women. She studied in secret, before assisting her dentist husband and continuing his practice after his death.

In 1898, at a time when architecture schools were reserved to men, self-taught Theodate Pope Riddle convinced her parents to move to Connecticut and buy a tract of land in Farmington where she planned to build them a house, now known as the Hill-Stead Museum. She hired the firm of McKim, Mead and White in New York City, instructing them to use her own sketches and essentially creating an apprenticeship for herself. Pope Riddle went on to design many Connecticut landmarks, including the college preparatory school Avon Old Farms.

"One thing that these women have in common is they really forged their own path," Pacheco said. "They faced barriers whether for gender and race, but regardless of these obstacles, they found their own opportunity forward and when there wasn't a path forward, they created one."

Another inductee, Maria Sanchez, came from Puerto Rico in 1954, at the age of 28, and opened “Maria’s News Stand” on Albany Avenue in Hartford, which soon became a meeting place for local women to discuss politics. She led a life of public service, advocating for those in her community, and went on to become the first Hispanic woman elected to the Connecticut General Assembly.

In 1974, Ella Tambussi Grasso, the daughter of Italian immigrants, ran for governor of Connecticut and won, becoming the first woman in the nation to be elected governor in her own right. She was posthumously inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1993.

"Many of the inductees were not seeking prestige, or to have a particular accomplishment, so much that they were seeking to fill a need that they saw in the community," Pacheco said.

Who are the female role models in Connecticut that have inspired you? Please tell us about them in the comment section.

Click through the slideshow to see more women trailblazers from Connecticut.